Description
Children of any age may need intensive care to overcome life-threatening illness. Despite the trend towards centralisation of paediatric intensive care services, it is inevitable that some children will receive all, or part of this care in local units. The spectrum of critical illness is wide and includes major anatomical or physiological abnormalities in the newborn, life-threatening infection and traumatic injuries in children of all ages. Sedation must be tailored to the needs of the individual child, bearing in mind the age, underlying diagnosis and physiological compromise. Appropriate choice of sedation of children in ITU has been controversial. This review is intended as a guide to sedation of children in non-specialist ITUs. Good sedation can be achieved using readily familiar sedative agents, which when used within the guidelines published here should have few, and usually predictable complications.
